[FOSS] How does one respond to this line of questioning?

[Joshua Judson Rosen]

Mark Komarinski <mkomarinski at wayga.org> writes:
>
> I'll be a bit of a Devil's Advocate here.
> 
> On 04/08/2011 09:02 AM, Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
> >> Why do many large organizations tend to resist FOSS?  Discuss.
> > FUD...utilizing the true definition....of the unknown.
> >
> > Even today there are lots of people in IT management who started after
> > the beginning of Microsoft and Apple....and other "systems" companies
> > who utilized closed source.  "Buying a solution" is all they know.
>
> 'Buying a solution' is how we always approach things.  We don't build 
> our own cars or houses from kits anymore - we buy them pre-built.  While 
> you can do your own plumbing or electrical work, you hire experts to 
> take care of it for you.  Why should software be any different?  If you 
> need to hire a $100,000+ developer for some amount of time to design an 
> application that you could license for $10,000/year.

Actually, "why should software be any different?" is a good question,
but you're asking it of the wrong side.

When I buy a car, or a house, or anything else, I don't have to give
the original builder or owner of the thing an permant (lifelong),
exclusive monopoly on maintaining it. If I discover a issue with my car
or house, there exists a free market in which I can choose any plumber,
electrician, carpenter, painter, or mechanic I like to do work;
I can have them compete in terms of both price and quality of service--
and if one of them does shoddy work, fails to meet deadlines, or
is rude to my wife, otherwise fails to satisfy, I can take my business
elsewhere.

So, if we can agree that the existence of free markets is generally
`a good thing' for houses and cars (and all sorts of other things),
and that we benefit from being able to choose (and re-choose)
who we hire to do maintenance (even if the car-dealership is
the obvious /first/ option to try--though there's no analogue
for houses...), I think it makes a lot of sense to ask your question:

    "Why should software be any different?"

If we're asking someone a question like "why are free markets bad?",
maybe it'd be appropriate to ask the guy pushing proprietary systems
another question:

    "What are you, a communist?"


> If you already have to pay for software and hardware maintenance,
> why bother training when you can have the vendor on the phone in two
> minutes?

And what's your contingency plan?

-- 
"Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))."